White House Principal Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer appeared on “Face the Nation” on CBS Sunday and said that the U.S. has been able to “get out” more than 300 Americans, lawful permanent residents, and their family members from Gaza after “pretty intensive negotiations with all sides relevant to this conflict.”

However, he also said that there are still an unknown number of Americans stuck in the war-torn region. Finer:

Margaret, we believe that there are still a number of Americans inside Gaza, but that over the last several days, through pretty intensive negotiations with all sides relevant to this conflict, we have been able to get out more than 300 Americans, lawful permanent residents and their family members. This is obviously a major priority, and one that we're going to continue to work out until every American who wants to leave is able to do so.

Watch:

BREAKING: More than 300 Americans have been taken out of Gaza "over the last several days," White House deputy national security adviser Jon Finer says.

He says there were "pretty intensive negotiations with all sides relevant to this conflict" to get them out. pic.twitter.com/8Q0srlkkGu

— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) November 5, 2023

Finer continued, explaining that negotiations are still going on behind the scenes to get the rest of our citizens out. What he didn't say is that they're negotiating with Hamas terrorists who are clearly going to try to exploit the situation to their maximum advantage. There's still a significant number of hostages left, he said (bolding mine):

This is another significant priority for the President and we believe for the Israeli government as well. This is a very difficult negotiation. 

There's a significant number of hostages held inside Gaza, many of whom are international passport holders, including, we believe, a number of Americans. Those negotiations are going on quietly behind the scenes, they have taken longer than any of us would like. But we continue to believe that there is the possibility of getting a significant number of these hostages released, and you've heard both President Biden and the Prime Minister of Israel say that there could be a pause in the fighting to enable that the way there was when two American hostages were released very early in the conflict. And we're going to continue to work on that as well.

Many have been pushing for a "pause in the fighting" or even an outright cease-fire, and as we reported, pro-Hamas protests broke out across the world Sunday. Finer seemed to endorse the idea of at least a pause, even though it would arguably give Hamas a chance to regroup:

You heard the Prime Minister of Israel say yesterday that the context in which they would consider a pause would be related to a hostage agreement. We don't obviously have yet a hostage agreement, but again, we're working very hard to get one. And if that were to take place, just being able to move hostages around the battlefield in a way that is safe, get them to a gate leading outside of Gaza would take time. And we would want to only be able to do that safely. 

So we believe a pause would be appropriate in that context. 

There's a reason why hostage-taking is banned by all civilized nations under the Geneva Conventions, and that's because it's a cruel, dirty tactic. Unfortunately, as we're seeing, it's also effective, and Hamas has used the hostages to their advantage and caused many people to call for a cease-fire to help get them out. The problem is, Hamas may be a political organization but they're also a terrorist group, so there's no guarantee they would actually free all their captives, cease-fire or not.